3 January 2013

15 Years of Heywire celebrated on ABC Local Radio

The ABCs Heywire competition has been giving young people from regional Australia an opportunity to tell their stories since 1998.

By Heywire

2012 Heywire winners at the Regional Youth Summit

The Heywire competition has been giving young people from regional Australia an opportunity to tell it like it is on the ABC since 1998. And to celebrate 15 years of Heywire, ABC Local Radio has broadcast a 1-hour special, featuring powerful stories by the Heywire winners from across the years.

Liz Trevaskis, a Heywire winner 15 years ago - the first year of the competition - and now a producer with ABC Darwin, says it was a thrill to be able to present this radio special which tackles so many issues that important to young people.

Liz grew up in the little country town of Tallangatta, in North East Victoria.

"Growing up in Tallangatta, I wasn't from a farm, and I wasn't from the city... and it was hard to know where I fit in, when the mask I wore so easily one day... was comfortably discarded the next. Like a lot of young people, I had my unique struggle with identity and that was the story I told in my Heywire entry."

"For me, the gathering of inspirational people at the Heywire Summit ignited a passion for capturing the stories of the bush... and over the last decade that's taken me right around Australia working with ABC Radio to keep telling those stories."

And if you know a young person who has something to say, encourage them to enter the Heywire competition HERE! Winners have their story played on the ABC and get flown to the Regional Youth Summit where they have their say in Canberra's corridors of power.

It could be the start of something big like it was for Jemima Buckman, who grew up on a sheep, wheat and cattle farm in Naribri, NSW.

Like a lot of young people rural Australia, leaving the farm to move away and study can be an expensive experience.

But through her Heywire experience, she was inspired to establish a regional scholarship for students at her former hospitality and event management college in Sydney.

"Immediately after the youth summit, I worked with my college where I was studying to set up a scholarship for a rural student to be able to come to that college."

"It was the best week ever and I have to say the most life-changing week of my life. I took so much away from the week and it even changed where my life has gone," she said.